Sheep liveweight and dry matter production from Years 3 and 4 of the Regenerative Agriculture Dryland Experiment
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33584/jnzg.2026.88.3901Abstract
In Year 4 of Lincoln University’s Regenerative Agriculture Dryland Experiment, the Regenerative sheep production system of multispecies forages and short-duration, high-density rotational grazing produced 130 kg/ha less liveweight than the Conventional system of simpler forages and longer-duration, lower-density grazing. Both systems produced the same amount of total dry matter (9.93 t/ha), but the Regenerative system produced less legume dry matter (3.43 versus 5.09 t/ha), crude protein (1.85 versus 2.24 t/ha) and metabolisable energy (111 versus 119 GJ/ha). The two levels of soil Olsen P (10–15 and 20–25 mg/kg) had no influence on the farm system effect. These results demonstrate that the greater legume content for the Conventional system was the most important factor to influence liveweight gain in this dryland environment.
Downloads
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Copyright
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Rights granted to the New Zealand Grassland Association through this agreement are non-exclusive. You are free to publish the work(s) elsewhere and no ownership is assumed by the NZGA when storing or curating an electronic version of the work(s). The author(s) will receive no monetary return from the Association for the use of material contained in the manuscript. If I am one of several co-authors, I hereby confirm that I am authorized by my co-authors to grant this Licence as their agent on their behalf. For the avoidance of doubt, this includes the rights to supply the article in electronic and online forms and systems.
